Patients receive paclitaxel IV over 3 hours on day 1. Treatment continues every 2 weeks for at least 1 course in the absence of disease progression or unacceptable toxicity. Patients who previously received paclitaxel receive no more than 1 course during this study.

PROJECTED ACCRUAL: A total of 33 patients will be accrued for this study.

Serologic diagnosis of HIV infection documented by a positive ELISA and confirmed with a Western Blot or other federally approved HIV diagnostic test

PATIENT CHARACTERISTICS:

Age:

18 and over

Performance status:

ECOG 0-2

Life expectancy:

Not specified

Hematopoietic:

Absolute neutrophil count at least 1,000/mm ^3(with or without the use of colony-stimulating factors)

Platelet count at least 50,000/mm^3

Hepatic:

Bilirubin no greater than 1.5 times upper limit of normal (ULN)

AST no greater than 2.5 times ULN

Alkaline phosphatase no greater than 2.5 times ULN

Renal:

Creatinine no greater than 1.5 mg/dL OR

Creatinine clearance greater than 60 mL/min

Neurologic:

No greater than grade 2 peripheral neuropathy

No neuropsychiatric history or altered mental status that would preclude study

Other:

Not pregnant or nursing

Fertile patients must use effective contraception

No other prior or concurrent malignancy except curatively treated carcinoma in situ of the cervix or basal cell or squamous cell skin cancer

No sensitivity to E. coli-derived proteins

No active untreated infection

No new infectious complications requiring a change in antibiotics within the past 2 weeks

PRIOR CONCURRENT THERAPY:

Biologic therapy:

Not specified

Chemotherapy:

See Disease Characteristics

Endocrine therapy:

Not specified

Radiotherapy:

At least 1 week since prior radiotherapy

No prior radiotherapy to marker lesions

No concurrent radiotherapy

Surgery:

Not specified

Other:

At least 2 weeks since prior systemic treatment for Kaposi's sarcoma

At least 2 weeks since prior nonapproved FDA investigational agents except available Investigational New Drugs that are antiretroviral agents

Concurrent maintenance therapy for opportunistic infections allowed

Concurrent commercially available antiretroviral therapy allowed

Contacts and Locations

Choosing to participate in a study is an important personal decision. Talk with your doctor and family members or friends about deciding to join a study.
To learn more about this study, you or your doctor may contact the study research staff using the Contacts provided below.
For general information, see Learn About Clinical Studies.

Please refer to this study by its ClinicalTrials.gov identifier: NCT00003008